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TermKit - a graphical terminal replacement

acko.net

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Re: TermKit - a graphical terminal replacement

#151

Post by moe »

unconed wrote: post #145
moe wrote: post #78

I love this! It has fundamental conceptional flaws. But hell, finally someone is rethinking the terminal, please continue working on this! Here's the direction I would propose: It must be 100% backwards compatible. This is not optional, anything else is a non-starter. Likewise trying to re-invent the entire unix userspace toolchain is a terrible idea. So why not do it the UNIX-way and how terminals have always done i…

I hear what you're saying, but respectfully I disagree. To me, it's like suggesting that the iPhone would be better if you added a physical slide out keyboard to make it more old-school; sure, you could do that, and would probably score popularity points with unconvinced customers. But you would compromise tons of secondary aspects of the device to do so. If TermKit would have a "traditional" mode of operation, and l…

Thanks for replying, and I am the one to be respectful, as you are the one who is doing all the work. So please take all my comments as an attempt at constructive criticism. :-)

While I can understand your viewpoint I'm worried that it will prove difficult to gain mindshare by attempting to replace existing terminals instead of augmenting them. As long as I can't use TermKit as my only terminal my motivation to even try it is non-existant. And I'm sure most people are like me in that regard.

Either way, I hope you will keep on working on it, as I'd love to see terminals become smarter. Once it's fit to fully replace my iTerm I will give it a shot.

Re: TermKit - a graphical terminal replacement

#152

Post by notaddicted »

Tycho wrote: post #96

I find Unix usability standards generally pretty insane. Funny he should post this, as on the train today I was thinking of making a program I'd call 'SmartTerm' or something which would basically be a more usable, graphically augmented terminal for beginners (or people who just can't stand interfaces which depend on memorization and patience). Some things I find nuts about the current terminal is OS X (at least the…

I've always wished the terminal would be upside down, so that new typing would happen at the top. Then you could put a bunch of descriptive info in the title bar and still wouldn't have to move the eyes much.

Re: TermKit - a graphical terminal replacement

#153

Post by mcs »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #75
unconed wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To address some of your concerns: - Monospace fonts for code is definitely in. Try catting a .js file, it will get syntax highlighted. Most likely, it doesn't recognize the mime type of your file. It's using the old mime.types DB + some custom additions... also, the highlighter I'm using only has so many languages defined. I looked for the most comprehensive / least fail one. - Regarding vim... I admit I just don't l…

My local editor is vim in a terminal. :) It seems like TermKit could handle curses applications fairly straightforwardly and without modifying those applications. Just set TERM=xterm, and when you see the xterm initialization string, either open a new tab or define a region in the existing tab, and emulate an xterm within that region. (If you use a region in the existing tab, it could have a control attached to it th…

I agree with this.

Where I work, everybody has linux development machines, but use their machine of choice as their actual workstation. This either forces people to use vim/emacs through SSH, or set up some local file sharing so that they can use their bloated eclipse thing.

Personally, I've spent months each with a few of the popular editors around, and I fall back on vim just because my .vimrc has been tuned so much over the past few years that it's just painful to use anything else. I don't even care if the editors have more features.

Now, if I had a fancier terminal, where my mouse click picked the right vim split view instance, or highlighting text in a split view vim selected only text in that window, instead of the whole line of the terminal, I would use that. MacVim is pretty much the perfect tool for me, but it's local and not remote (and also not inside a terminal that I can split up with screen).

Re: TermKit - a graphical terminal replacement

#157

Post by jrockway »

ak217 wrote: post #121
Tycho wrote: post #96

I find Unix usability standards generally pretty insane. Funny he should post this, as on the train today I was thinking of making a program I'd call 'SmartTerm' or something which would basically be a more usable, graphically augmented terminal for beginners (or people who just can't stand interfaces which depend on memorization and patience). Some things I find nuts about the current terminal is OS X (at least the…

> especially in something like Vim. give me some help to learn the shortcuts as i work, FFS. on a GUI you look at the keyboard shortcuts beside the menu items, and get to know them naturally. This. I hate both vi and emacs for not having a usable menu system that lets me browse through and learn the commands as I go. I also think bash-completion, while a huge step forward in usability, really should have focused on i…

Pretty sure Emacs has menus:

http://jrock.us/emacs-menus.png

Re: TermKit - a graphical terminal replacement

#158

Post by jrockway »

perlgeek wrote: post #34

I love the idea of experimenting with graphical output on the console. I've seen images and vidoes running on the terminal (not a terminal emulator) using "framebuffer" consoles. Sadly that typically only worked in full-screen mode. If somebody wrote an ordinary terminal emulator that allowed pixel graphics as part of the normal text flow, and created an easy API for programs to use it, I'd be very happy. TermKit loo…

I agree. I think it can be easily implemented as a slight modification to a standard terminal: bind some UNIX socket, announce the address in an environment variable, and then accept connections and commands from applications that are interested in enhancing their output.

Re: TermKit - a graphical terminal replacement

#159

Post by tomkarlo »

roqetman wrote: post #54
unconed wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And on another note... it's been hilarious how people have been questioning my professional credentials just because I want to make something more usable. I've implemented over a dozen RFCs, can match regexps with the best of them and do know which end of a pipe does what ;).

It is amusing how we hackers, who are supposed to embrace change, become as Luddite as anyone else when our sacred tools are questioned. Personally I see room for this and a whole lot more. I'd like to see an amalgam of this and the traditional terminal (easy way to pull up a traditional terminal if you need it). There is no need to "replace"; I think this makes a fine addition to a hackers workspace.

Bloomberg found the same thing when they tried to redesign their terminals for traders - existing users were so invested in their knowledge of the "incantations" of the old interface that they were hugely resistant to a UI with a more modern learning curve and interaction.

It's very hard to make a product that essentially devalues things that your customers spent a lot of time learning. You're probably better off ignoring people who already happy with their shell experience, and going after people who have not yet invested in learning all that crap.

And yes, it's crap. And I say that not because I don't know it myself, but because in the end, much of it is not essential to the actual job we're trying to get done, it's the tools we use. And the tools are not the job.

Re: TermKit - a graphical terminal replacement

#160

Post by grncdr »

mcs wrote: post #153
JoshTriplett wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My local editor is vim in a terminal. :) It seems like TermKit could handle curses applications fairly straightforwardly and without modifying those applications. Just set TERM=xterm, and when you see the xterm initialization string, either open a new tab or define a region in the existing tab, and emulate an xterm within that region. (If you use a region in the existing tab, it could have a control attached to it th…

I agree with this. Where I work, everybody has linux development machines, but use their machine of choice as their actual workstation. This either forces people to use vim/emacs through SSH, or set up some local file sharing so that they can use their bloated eclipse thing. Personally, I've spent months each with a few of the popular editors around, and I fall back on vim just because my .vimrc has been tuned so muc…

You might want to do

:help mouse

All of the things you mentioned are supported and work with most terminal emulators (tested with xterm, gnome-terminal, iterm2 on OSX)

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